Sarah Susanka’s Not So Big philosophy and SchoolStreet Homes are mentioned in an article by Jeffrey Steele in Friday’s ‘Chicago Homes’ section of the Tribune.

Home, lean home

Designers, builders resolve to lose extra house flab

By Jeffrey Steele, Special to the TribuneDecember 30, 2011

Have you resolved to go on a diet and shed pounds in the new year? Why not also put your home on a diet in 2012?

It makes sense, said Sharon Kreighbaum, author of the new book “Is Your House Overweight? Recipes for Low-Fat Rooms” and owner of Staged Makeovers in Hudson, Ohio. When a house is overweight, it feels uncomfortable and sluggish and weighs on occupants, said the interior designer and home stager.

Bloomberg Businessweek published an article arguing for the value in transit-oriented development, T.O.D. meaning projects located in walkable communities with easy access to public or mass transportation. In the story, Shaun Donovan, secretary of Housing and Urban Development, said, “The ghost towns of the housing bust are places that lack transportation options, that aren’t walkable. The average family spends 52 cents of every dollar they earn on housing and transportation combined, so the biggest opportunity is in development around transportation.”

Former Dwell Magazine Editor in Chief, Allison Arrieff, wrote a fantastic piece this week arguing for the reinvention of the single-family home.

We believe SchoolStreet is an example of her proposed paradigm shift, in that each house addresses how its inhabitants really live, and we are making this financially possible through our working laboratory – developing innovative design and delivery methods for each subsequent home. Our nearby, off-site, prefabrication field, has increased productivity, reduced worker fatique, and had some of the homes’ walls framed before the foundation was even poured. The soon-to-be released Customer Web-Portal will give customers real-time access to all of their project information. And we are developing architectural rulesets so that we can deliver true design customization to our homebuyers in an efficient, controlled virtual environment.

StreetScape welcomes this paradigm shift, because we believe we have a process, design system, and delivery method to efficiently deliver homebuyers with a home that is tailored to their lifestyles.

Arieff explains it best when she says, “There is a demand for smaller, more energy-efficient homes in less car-dependent neighborhoods; all aspects of the industry, from designers to lenders to planners to consumers, should meet it. In this era of anti-government fervor, subsidizing the American Dream isn’t an option; transforming it is the only one we’ve got.”

This model is contrary to the traditional cookie-cutter homebuilder’s, and the success of SchoolStreet is a prime example that this shift is real, and we are on the cutting edge of this new single-family home.